Friday, February 08, 2013

Only Scattered Outages Expected from Blizzard

UPDATE Blizzard conditions are expected to leave Connecticut’s highways impassable well before the evening commute Friday, prompting Gov. Dannel P. Malloy tonight to order non-essential state employees to stay home Friday.

The National Weather Service said light snow will begin Friday morning and turn heavy in the afternoon, with gusty winds dropping visibility to less than a quarter-mile. Possible accumulations in Hartford are 3 to 5 inches during the day and another 10 to 16 inches at night, with snow continuing into Saturday.

“Snowfalls of as much as 3 inches an hour are possible tomorrow,” Malloy said tonight at a briefing at the Emergency Operations Center in Hartford.

The blizzard is the result of a collision of a polar and subtropical air masses that “will combine to produce a major and potentially historic winter storm for the Northeastern U.S.,” according to an advisory from the National Weather Service.